Reasons to Celebrate
I recently attended the first wedding of my adult life; it was a beautiful Indian wedding between one of my best friends, Shaashwat, and the love of his life, Ritika. I’ve grown up with Shaash since we were in middle school, and it was clear from the first time we met that we’d be in each other’s lives for a long time. We did everything together in high school: tennis team, robotics, programming club, ping-pong club, even Spanish class. At one point we were so in sync that, true story, we’d test our telepathy by rolling an imaginary die in our minds and drawing the result on a small white board that was hidden from the other person. We’d flip the boards around and, sure enough, we had rolled the same number.
Shaash and I went to different colleges, stayed in touch, and found ourselves both living in New York City after graduation. I was introduced to a bunch of his friends from Georgia Tech who also moved to New York and we all got along great. It was a testament to the kinds of people Shaash is able to draw toward him: folks who are driven, hilarious, loyal, and kind. He moved to California for a year while pursuing his own startup, and came back to NY after accepting an offer with Handshake AI and finding out his fiancée got into medical school in Brooklyn. Shortly thereafter, he convinced me to interview for Handshake too, where I got to work with him for a wonderful period of time. As I write this, he’s back at Palantir as a forward deployed engineer. He has an admirable habit of discovering problems he finds interesting, and pursuing them relentlessly while getting others just as excited about them.
His wedding was in Portugal, which gave me a great excuse to plan myself a two-week-long trip in Europe in anticipation of the event. My first stop was at React Summit in Amsterdam followed by a few nights of clubbing and watching World Cup games in Madrid. It was the longest stretch of PTO I’d ever taken in my career. Much needed, considering how hard I’ve been working over the last few months and how desperately I needed an escape from the city. The only unfortunate thing about the whole trip, which I had booked out months in advance, was that the Knicks decided to win the championship for the first time in 53 years while I was fast asleep in an Amsterdam hostel. As a Celtics fan, I was unbothered, but as a fan of the City of New York, I was missing out on the chaos and beauty of the celebrations that followed. I hope the energy is still just as high when I return later today.
The reason why I feel compelled to write about this is not to talk about the Knicks, or even to really get into the details of my travels (it was pretty fun!). Instead, I wanted to highlight this idea that a big part of any relationship is giving people reasons to celebrate you. Weddings are a prime example: you invite your friends and family to come together and celebrate your union. It’s an event that’s equally for the couple as it is for their families. But as a participant, I’m happy to go out of my way for my friends. They’ve given me a reason to celebrate them, and I obviously leaped at the opportunity. I think I would have traveled anywhere on earth for this wedding, and it wasn’t hard to convince me (and the rest of his friends/family) to come to a city as beautiful as Lisbon.
Marathon Monday in Boston is one of my favorite days of the year, every year. And now that my twin sister is a yearly competitor, I love it even more! But the reason I love Patriots’ Day is simple. Every single person you see lining up along the course is there to cheer someone else on. The entire city comes together in a moment of collective support. To celebrate hard work and determination. To show off a silly sign that reads “I thought about you, I’m proud of you, keep going!” I’ve run a few distance races in New York and my favorite part has honestly been getting to the mile marker where my friends were waiting for me with signs and cheers.
You don’t need to get married or run a race to have your friends by your side. But a crucial part of maintaining relationships isn’t only showing up when others need you. You also need to give others a reason to come through for you. Birthday parties are another clear example, and while I love celebrating trips around the sun, there are so many ways to catalyze this reaction. Move-in parties, house-warmings, and house-coolings. Work anniversaries. Competitions of any kind. Performances. Sobriety milestones. Galentine’s Day. Graduations. Concert performances and recitals. The list is infinite, because everyone has unique ways in which they want their friends to support them. In this way, working on yourself and doing hard things becomes something that benefits the people who love you just as much as it benefits you.
These reasons don’t always need to be positive either. If you’re going through a hard time, let your support system cook you a meal when you don’t feel like eating. Have them sit with you when you don’t feel like talking. You need only to make the initial effort; they will only know to be there for you if you communicate it. Good or bad, send the invitation, text, message, postcard, whatever. Those worth keeping around will come. Also, it’s perfectly acceptable to not be 100% available all the time! Life is complicated. You will have other plans, obligations, and last-minute changes that sometimes keep you away from these moments. When others can’t show up for you, it’s not worth taking it personally. And when you can’t show up in the way that you want for others, there’s no shame in asking for a rain check. No matter what, just keep trying your best.
I caught myself feeling really emotional over the last two days of events and ceremonies. I’m only human. Not to be dramatic, but seeing the joy that poured out of both his own family and his fiancée’s side gave me a renewed belief in the future. That marriage isn’t this scary life sentence that takes away your youth. That Love is powerful, kind, and something worth putting your faith in. Maybe it was a mix of the beautiful Lisbon scenery, the sunset casting fuchsia hues onto the clouds, or the music and dances that followed, but I believe this really was the perfect way to celebrate their marriage. I’m so grateful to have been there.
Congratulations, Shaashwat and Ritika! Here’s to the future, and to finding many more reasons to celebrate one another.
